MEMBERS OF CONGRESS – WE WILL REMEMBER IN 2026

We are paying close attention to your legislative decisions and believe it is a great time to remind our elected officials of our power.  We are the 65+ voters, and roughly 75% of us turned out in 2024, along with our family, colleagues, and friends of all ages.  

In 2025 alone, Congress acted in a manner that showed reckless and often cruel legislative behavior, with utter disregard for protecting the agencies, programs, and services Americans have relied on for years, and ignored the needs of retirees and older Americans by failing to legislate favorably for them. 

What is America today but a nation with vast and profound, ingrained, and systemic problems, a society concentrated on opposing extremes?  

But interestingly enough, there is widespread sentiment among Americans across political ideologies that our nation's massive bureaucratic structure requires significant attention and reform, and contrary to the belief of some of our elected officials, we are smart enough to know that such change not only involves bipartisanship, but the serious work collaboration requires, and we yearn for it. 

Nevertheless, after years of pervasive problems, you chose to implement policies at breakneck speed rather than enact legislation with scholarly intent, using rigorous, evidence-based policy development in which expert research should have guided its formation.  Instead, in some severe instances, you allowed executive orders, while legal, to serve as a band-aid for your failure to do the business of Congress. 

More distressing, Congress has generally ceased to legislate with fairness and humanity in mind, with members often serving themselves or their political donors, forgetting that they are in place to serve their constituents. 

We've had enough. 

We expect you to fix our country's problems and create laws and policies that reflect the values most dear to us: dignity, fairness, respect, and integrity, which protect our individual and collective rights, ensure government accountability, and promote the best interests of all our citizens, but sadly, there is a preponderance of evidence that informs that our government is stagnant in many ways which has led to inaction. 

—We are sick of Congress kicking pressing issues down the road year after year, and agree with the substantial body of evidence indicating that Congress is more ideologically polarized than the American people.  We may suffer from affective polarization, distrusting one another based on party affiliation; however, the real extreme ideological divide is among yourselves, so you are unable to do the job we hired you to do. 

 

EXHIBIT A – In 1977 and 1983, the Social Security Act amendments placed the insolvency burden on American workers.  You saw the warning signs decades ago – you knew about the long-term funding shortfall, and you still haven't taken action.  

EXHIBIT B – You also had early warnings about Medicare's financial condition in the mid-1970s, and perhaps even at its inception.  Sure, you tried to extend the program's life through legislation, but that did not rectify the impending financial crisis.   

EXHIBIT C – You've recently attempted to pull the wool over our eyes by claiming that the Medicaid issue is fundamentally an "illegal immigration" problem, which neglects to inform that millions of Americans rely on their dual eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid, with older Americans making up the majority of the dual-eligible population.
 
EXHIBIT D – Many of you have talked the talk, but not walked the walk.  You say you care, but you did not inform the American people that severe cuts to healthcare and nutrition programs will have cascading effects that harm our nation and our states, hurt providers and insurers, increase insurance premiums, and undermine the overall health of our people.  

EXHIBIT E – We are living in an America where a 2025 bill to enhance the Older Americans Act has been sitting in the Senate HELP Committee since June 2025 without receiving the momentous bipartisan approval it deserves.  Are you actively at work trying to tell us you don't genuinely care about our health, prosperity, and dignity?  It sure feels like that. 

 

Therefore, let's be vividly clear.  

We urge you to legislate to rectify the many problems facing our great nation and stop the partisan divide causing political gridlock, eroding trust in our institutions, elevating social division and animosity among our citizens, and do the crucial and essential work to stop the misinformation fueled by partisan media and the algorithms on social media that exacerbate the problem. 
 

Sincerely, 
 

We the People